Memory Tourism.

Saturday went pretty well. It wasn't as sombre an occasion as I thought it might be. Most of the interior photographs here are from a disc that the couple who live there now gave me, of photos they took before renovating. The rest of the photos aren't in any particular order, but the sketchbook pages are, and it is those where I have written down my thoughts on the trip, so I shan't say much here now.

As for the muses, they have as much of an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.

Some pre-departure research:

• Possible explanation for the placing of a rhinoceros on top of a bus stop in Dumfries, as suggested by my father.
• Actual explanation of the placing of a rhinoceros, (not actually on top of the bus stop, as it turns out, but nearby,) in Dumfries, as suggested by Google.

"You've not thought out this trip have you?"

Apparently I should take some sort of gift to the people whose house I'm going to. This hadn't really occurred to me, but makes sense I suppose. Also, I need to take lunch with me but I didn't think to make sure I had something... I'm not sure if the bread in the freezer will continue to go mouldy if I take it out of the freezer to defrost overnight.. (It seems most of the thought I've put into this has been more conceptual than practical.)

Three wise monkeys on the windowsill.

The other day, I thought I'd start off by just writing down quite briefly a description of the house, before doing a few drawings. (Because it's y'know, an art project.) This ended up being two sides of writing, done a bit at a time over a few days... It was quite tiring trying to write everything down, which I hadn't really anticipated.

I don't think this means everything I can remember can be contained within two sides of my handwriting - it was more of an orientation exercise, something to help me work out exactly what I could remember and which bits I had forgotten. I was quite surprised that I managed to turn memories of each separate room into an almost-complete plan of the house. (At this point, it might be relevant to admit that although my attempts to remember on purpose everything exactly are perhaps one of the most poignant aspects of this project, I do realise that I can remember some parts better than others just because I spent more time in them.) The image of a page of writing maybe illustrates something about the process, and the difficulty, of remembering.

I'm going to take the plan with me, and see how accurate I was.

The two polaroids are from one of the last summers we visited, when my dad had just got a polaroid camera from work - so there's the back garden at my grandparents' and then me around the age I was when I last went inside the house there. They're on the bookshelf in my room.
Right now, I need to make sure I know where to get the bus from...

Only we can go there.

In full bloom at the moment.

Today I got this email:

Timothea,

Sorry to hear about your Grandfather George....he was such a lovely man. His snowdrops are in full bloom at the moment.
I would love you to come and look around the house...however I find it inappropriate for you to take photographs of the inside of the house....I don't mind you taking photographs of the outside....as not much has really changed.
The kitchen is still as George and Alice left it in December 2001....however we aim to change it this year.
You may find the village has changed since your last visit....we now have an 0rganic Tea Room, a Craft Shop and even a Chocolaterie. The Craigdarroch Hotel is closed for the season but The George has a new restarurant and we have an Italian restaurant "The Three Glens" between the two.
The supermarket is still here but at the opposite side of the road....it even has a wood burning stove.
Can you give me a rough time as to when you are likely to arrive this Saturday.
Hope you get a good day for your walk down memory lane.

Maggie Nocher

So this project takes on a slightly less theoretical and more empirical aspect... I replied saying I'd probably get there about half twelve on Saturday. (I was starting to think I'd get no reply, so this is something of a turn-around.)

Forgetting.

An apparently relevant quote about the nature of memory:

"When from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

And once again I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy), immediately the old gray house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theater."

(From Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time. Thanks, Wikiquote.)

Also on the topic of memory... In one of the first posts, I mentioned an artist who'd done a video piece about a girl who turned herself into a camera. I've yet to go back and add a link, but here's a video of a guy who has actually been called 'The Human Camera'. I suspect he's better at remembering places than I will prove myself to be. Nonetheless, I think the next thing I'll attempt will be some sketches of what I can remember.

Somewhat unclear as to the exact details.

I'm pretty sure the letter I posted on Sunday will have made it to Moniaive now, but I've not heard anything back. (Although, I seem to remember that when we were in Scotland for my Grandad's funeral - and went for a walk around Moniaive - that the name of the house had been changed, from Cloch na Ben to something else, so I am wondering if it will definitely have got there.) If I don't get any kind of reply, I don't really have a plan for that, but I don't think I'll stop there.

In the meantime, I've been trying to work out how I'll get there, and how much it would be possible to try and find places from memory. So far, it seems that I'll probably go by bus, and so I'd only really have to attempt to find my way from the bus stop to the house, which wouldn't be too hard, considering the size of the place. The bus journey will be a scenic one though I think. I had at first looked into driving there, which would have been closer to the original holidays, but I could only think of one person who I thought might have a car. He doesn't, I'm not sure where I got that from.

So apparently, this is the rather long bus journey I'll have to make. Because I have to go down to Dumfries then get the bus back up to Moniaive, it'll take longer than Google Maps told me it would... This does also mean though, that it'll be closer to the route that we would have driven from home in the summer holidays; The 'Rhino' referred to in the timetable is a concrete one, for some reason on top of a bus stop in Dumfries, and one of the oddest landmarks I remember from the drive up to Moniaive. The thought that I might be getting a bus from the actual rhino bus stop is quite an exciting one.

A Proposal: To go back to somewhere I once knew well and see how it has changed.

These distorted interior views, and the thought that they could represent half-remembered things from the past, reminded me of when I was about 9, and my grandparents moved house. I went systematically around each room and memorised what they looked like, and then closed my eyes to check I could remember them. I still check every so often, and I do sort of remember, but I'm not sure if my attempt at becoming a sort of human camera was what did it. (Actually, later I'll add to this post a link to an artist who did a film piece about a girl who did actually turn herself into a camera, if I can find out who that was... Here we go)

One thing to do, would be to go back, and see how well it really worked. Maybe using the underwater-camera-in-a-jug-thing again.

(I suppose what I had made by using the waterproof camera to photograph from underwater things that were not, could be a camera that distorts memories of its own accord, so, perhaps, a more truthful camera than one that shows things as they were.)

Except, it'll probably have changed quite a lot. So I'm quite apprehensive. But here's the draft of the letter I wrote. It's quite honest, and quite polite, I like to think. And I've posted the real thing now anyway.

Where we came from and where we are going.

So having had some difficulty taking underwater photos at the canal, I decided to see what would happen if I just put the camera in a big jug of water and took photos of my flat. When I got the photos back, most of them hadn't come out, but the ones that did were really quite eerie and distorted, kind of dream-like and half-remembered. Having written down lots of things about hindsight, drowning and the subconcious, I was pretty pleased with this.

Contemplating drowning.

This is where I started, with one hand in the canal. (And the other to stop me from falling in completely. It was an awkward task.)

I liked the idea of being underwater, of it being a distorted perspective that our senses and bodies aren't adapted to, the feeling of things being unclear and indefinite.

Particularly, the ones that are just below the surface, with a way out in sight. The sky as viewed from underwater, as hindsight and a struggle to remember.